ABSTRACT
If you are in the immediate vicinity of an explosive volcanic eruption you face death or at least significant damage to person and property. People may die both from the immediate eruption and its long-term impacts on the environment (ranging from tsunamis to starvation through destruction of the landscape). Such tragedies happened to c. 30,000 people in the city of St Pierre in Ad 1902 when Mt Pelée erupted, to an unknown number of people, possibly many tens of thousands, due to the eruptions of Mt Krakatoa in Ad 1883 and Mt Tambora in Ad 1815, or, infamously, to the several thousand inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum when Vesuvius erupted in Ad 79 (cf. Blong, 1984; Scarth, 1999).
